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A marine recruit exposed to tear gas. (US Marine Corps)
Alex Horton
Generalist journalist covering national and last-minute news
The military recruits enter the room one by one and put on protective masks. Tear gas swirls. Then, order: Take off your mask and breathe. The eyes are tight, the throat tightens and the men and women who train in the war yawn uncontrollably.
Almost every uniform is covered with snot. Some recruits vomit.
Exercising in the gas chamber shows the troops that their equipment is working. It also shows, viscerally, what happens if an enemy targets US forces with an agent such as tear gas, commonly referred to as CS gas – an aerosol compound considered a chemical weapon that has been banned on the battlefield by almost every country on the Earth. , including the United States.
But as a riot control agent, 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile is legal, both by the police and by the federal authorities of the United States and many other countries.
On Sunday, US Customs and Border Protection agents fired the chemical agent mainly from Honduran migrants attempting to cross into Tijuana – an unusual escalation of arms lobbing an international border to unarmed civilians seeking refuge, condemning the Democrats.
"I felt that my face was burning and my baby fainted. I have run for my life and that of my children, "Wall Street Journalwoman Cindy Milla, a Honduran migrant with two children, told the Wall Street Journal.
On 25 November, a migrant family is fleeing tear gas at the border wall between the United States and Mexico, in Tijuana, Mexico. (Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters)
Chief patrol officer Rodney Scott, chief border police officer in the San Diego area, defended the use of gas, telling CNN that three of his employees had been hit by stones or debris that had also "damaged" vehicles. None of his agents were seriously injured, he I said.
Chemical weapons such as CS gas are used indiscriminately and "terrorize in a unique way", which necessitated their interdiction in combat in 1993, said Kelsey Davenport, director of non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association based in Washington.
Once thrown in or thrown into an area, chemical weapons can not be controlled and can drift to people who are not targets, Davenport told the Washington Post on Monday.
In combat, this would include civilians and wounded soldiers, and even friendly soldiers if the wind turned. The American planners of the war during the First World War made American victims during his own asphyxiating gas attacks.
On Sunday, at the border, women and children, some of them in diapers, came into contact with tear gas, which raises questions about whether it was an accident. proportional response. Officials described aggressive men threatening the security of the agents; Scott said 42 people, mainly men, had been apprehended on the US side of the border.
A CBP spokesperson did not return a request for comment on the agency's policies to know when to use CS gas, or if shots are fired at the border or how many shots were fired. No serious migrant injuries have been reported.
[U.S. closes major crossing as caravan migrants mass at border in Mexico]
Images of children and mothers fleeing tear gas scandalized the Democrats who criticized President Trump's reaction to the caravan of migrants.
California's elected Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, argued that images of children running tear gas go against American ideals.
"These children are barefoot. In the layers. Suffocating with tear gas, he tweeted. "Women and children who have left their lives – in search of peace and asylum – have been confronted with violence and fear. It's not my America. We are a land of refuge. D & # 39; hope. Of freedom. And we will not tolerate that. "
Tear gas was used during the demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown by the police in 2014, resulting in similar accusations by human rights groups and the United States. citizens who described the police response as disproportionate.
Countries in the Middle East and Africa generally use SC gas more potent than US authorities exert, with devastating results.
In 2013, Egyptian police fired tear gas at the back of a vehicle carrying in prison supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, who caused the asphyxiation and death of 37 people. A male lawyer posted on Twitter photos of a corpse with a dark face that families initially thought the victims had been burned to death.
Other people were killed by inhaling CS gas or by the projectiles themselves.
Davenport said the first chemical weapons ban took place after the First World War, after the international community was shocked by twisted corpses in the trenches and horrific wounds from burned skin and lung survivors. marked.
In the modern era, the use of chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein in wartime and against Iraqi civilians was a push factor in favor of a total ban on chemical agents. said Davenport.
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention bans not only the use of chemical weapons in wartime, but also the production and storage of weapons for 193 signatories, she said.
Israel has signed but not ratified the convention. North Korea, Egypt and South Sudan have taken no action.
Read more:
Photos of migrant children fleeing tear gas provoke scandal
Border protection prepared for the caravan – with weapons and equipment designed for combat
At the border, uncertainty about the migrant caravan and the military concertina wire
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